Re: February 2011 Screenshots

Well, it's a pretty bad trade off to limit these threads for the people who can spare the bandwidth. It's really hard to believe, imho, that there is a substantial amount of people who a) use a rolling release distro like Arch and b) roam image-heavy threads like these while worrying about their bandwidth.

If there was a vote on this rule and some serious majority (like 80%) would say that they don't care about the bandwidth, would you mods repeal it?

The reason I'm asking is this: I got a really slow connection (I'd bet in the bottom 5% of the users who visit this board), but with unlimited bandwidth. I find it very, very annoying to continuously open and close a plethora of different image hosters just to see these pics. It's slow as hell and in the end, I'd guess that it uses more bandwidth than the alternative.

For example, let's say you are looking for a nice font or an interesting conky. Even with "large" thumbnails like this (example taken from the last post of the conky thread), it's just impossible to see. So you gotta click on each and every thumbnail, open a dozen tabs with Imageshack, omploader, Deviantart (you know how much bandwidth that uses with all the flash?!?) just to find that the pic in question wasn't worth it. ... that just sucks.

Make them large enough to be recognizable. Posting 2500xsomething screenshots is bad, because it would break the margins of thread, sure. But it's 2011; I guess everybody can display 1024xXXX pics and the additional bandwidth will most likely kill nobody. And I wouldn't be stuck with ~15 open tabs everytime I visit this board.

Re: February 2011 Screenshots

We only leave the links where the image provides information necessary to help others understand an issue or help diagnose a problem.

In screenshot threads, the question you should ask is "can't the posters read the rules?"

Can we at least get a justification for these rules? Several veteran posters don't agree with them and even Allan himself has questioned them.

There's been discussion enough, a search on the forum would turn up the relevant posts. There is no justification necessary, because we do not answer to you. Again: this is not a democracy. You haven't elected us.

The fact Allan 'himself' disagrees with the rules does not matter in the slightest (and does suggest you did indeed read some of the discussion about this, but rather chose to filter out the posts/arguments you did not like). Allan is not a mod anymore, and even if he still were, he 'himself' would not have the final call on that.

Your attempts at discussing this are futile. Quit contaminating this thread.

Re: February 2011 Screenshots

It's really nice that attempts to discuss this are called "contaminating" the very thread it's about. Especially when there is no personal message system at hand which could be used instead. (And I'm sure as hell not bothering a random mod via email for this...)

Seriously... this "It's not a democracy" argument is as tired as it gets. Not only is it a weak cope out, it's also not really applicable in this case. This is not a random forum on the internet where love it or leave it would be an acceptable answer. It's the gathering point for the Arch community and I'm sure you'll agree that it's rather pointless, if not impossible, to use Arch without being part of the community. Thus, I think it should be possible to at least ask the mods to explain the rules and argue with them in case you think that there are no good arguments.

So, again: Why is this rule in place? You are absolutely right, I have followed the discussion. I use Arch since 2008. So far, I haven't heard a convincing argument for it. As I tried to explain in my last post, I think the bandwidth-argument is wrong and in the end, this policy hurts people with bad/limited Internet access most.

Re: February 2011 Screenshots

Stop flooding this thread, seriously. This is not the only forum which has such a rule in place. There was not one argument on your side which actually stuck (if you wanna display screenshots with a huge resolution at your suggested 1024*768, fonts will be totally smudged and you would have to open the the screenshot to begin with). So in your case, you will inspect the screenshots either way - and what does it matter to you if you have to open a new tab? Boohooo, SUCH a hassle.

This whole argument breaks down to your personal preference - and unfortunately it is not the one that matters. My personal preference for one is to stick to thumbnails, because my laptop only has a 1024*768 resolution and I cannot display bigger thumbs. I am not limited by bandwidth, but I am sure that people who are will undoubtedly appreciate this forums policy.

Re: February 2011 Screenshots

SleepyFloyd wrote:

So far, I haven't heard a convincing argument for it.

We aren't trying to convince you. We are implementing a policy that tries to balance the needs of a diverse community. You are just one member of that community. As B said, this has been discussed at length and it will not be changed.

Re: February 2011 Screenshots

I'm not asking for an outright change, I'm, first of all, asking for an explanation.

I think it's a very bad idea to treat the forums of a community driven project like Arch this way. Telling people to "stop contaminating" the discussion, while locking the only other thread where such talk could take place just makes this place look very unfriendly.

I'm a mod of a way bigger board than this. There is an extra forum to talk about the rules and the mods will explain them or refer to the faqs if asked. Here, in a place that takes extra pride in its community, you get your posts deleted and get told to "not contaminate" the thread. I can't help to find that very strange...

See, even if just a smallish amount of the users here want to preserve their bandwidth, I'm cool with it. I'm not asking to change the rules just for me. But from my experience, a very noticeable amount of people does post "big" screenshots and is surprised to learn that only tiny thumbnails are allowed. I do think that indicates that there is some need to discuss this.

There is a page-long entry of rules in every thread... would it kill you mods to explain your reasoning there? Preferably a bit more conclusive than "Not everybody uses boradband"...

This will be my last post here. I'm not going to contaminate this thread any longer... I have made my case and you have stated that you don't care. I guess there's nothing more to say.

Re: February 2011 Screenshots

jasonwryan wrote:

SleepyFloyd wrote:

So far, I haven't heard a convincing argument for it.

We aren't trying to convince you. We are implementing a policy that tries to balance the needs of a diverse community. You are just one member of that community. As B said, this has been discussed at length and it will not be changed.

I love you

I just want to say that Im one of those that is extremely grateful for this thumbnail policy. I remember there was a time when the mods would simply leave the link, but posters never followed the rules and would continue to post large screenshots anyway. Not only does it eat up unnecessary bandwidth, but its also annoying when the page takes like 5 minutes to load up and continually jerks down with every new image while im trying to read. Aside from that the thumbnail policy also adds a level of uniformity to the page, making the browsing experience more enjoyable in general.

With this new policy I can see that it iritates people when their pictures disapear, so maybe that will motivate them to use thumbnails next time. How hard is it? Many sites even automatically generate the bb code for thumnails, like omploader for example.

Anyway while Im here I figure Ill post a couple of screens, as its been a few months. Nothings changed in over a year so I figure its safe to reuse some old ones